Mail 4.2 and Gmail Issues & Settings

[chkdg8]

Ok, before I get started I want to say that I read all of the threads pertaining to this issue and I cannot come to a conclusion as to what I can do to resolve this issue.

I bought my wife a 15" Macbook Pro for the holidays and she's a recent convert to Mac OS. As I was tutoring her on the basics, we proceeded on setting up her email account through Gmail with the Mail app. What I also did was delete my own account on my iMac so I can set it up together with her while she watched me do it and sure enough, when it was all said and done, our mail accounts were set up but now I had new folders that I've never seen before.

Mail no longer gave me the option to choose POP and set up IMAP by default instead. This led me to finding out that if I held down the Alt/Option key during the account setup, it then gave me the option to use a POP setting. Everyone says that IMAP is a much better solution and I ultimately want to move away from POP but Mail keeps downloading ALL of my emails that dates back at least a month. Sometimes this takes a least 7 to 8 minutes as I have some large attachments from previous recipients and it bogs down my network. Keep in mind that it doesn't matter if I delete all of them, they still re-download when I relaunch the Mail app.

How in the hell do I sort all of this out? I've gone into my Gmail settings and checked off the proper protocols for POP settings when I use POP and then proper IMAP settings for that as well. It's just so confusing for me to have all of those Gmail folders on the left hand side. I just want to be able to delete an email forever without Mail acting up.

Is this a server issue with Gmail or a problem with Mail itself? I do not want to use Thunderbird because Mail is perfectly integrated enough with the OS for me. Thank you for your help.

EDIT: I also want to add that I'm having the same issues with Mail on my iPhone as well when it's set up through IMAP.

 

[TonyL08]

You can enable advanced imap settings within Gmail in the Labs section of settings. Then under the Labels section, uncheck the folders you don't want to see. I've unchecked Chats, All Mail, and Spam on mine.

Also, if you don't want the attachments to download, goto Mail Preferences, Accounts, Advanced and under "Keep copies of messages for offline viewing" set it to the second option, "All messages but omit attachments".

I've also disabled Mail's Junk filtering since Gmail handles that itself. And be sure to assign which folders do what in Mail by selecting them, clicking Mailbox at the top and setting the "Use this mailbox for" to the correct setting.

Hope that helps.

 

[ethical]

Why don't you just let it download the emails (do it overnight if easier), then it won't ever do it again, and they will be available on your mac for offline viewing. Alternatively, link your Mail app's Trash folder with the Trash folder on the online Gmail account, then when you delete an email on the Mail app, it will be deleted on the online account too, and thus won't come back everytime you re-open Mail.

 

[chkdg8]

And be sure to assign which folders do what in Mail by selecting them, clicking Mailbox at the top and setting the "Use this mailbox for" to the correct setting.

Hope that helps.

How do I go about choosing that option?

 

[TonyL08]

How do I go about choosing that option?

Select the folder you want to assign, for example, Drafts. On the Menubar, select Mailbox, toward the bottom you'll see "Use this mailbox for". Highlight that, and select Drafts. This will tell Mail to use the Gmail Drafts box for all drafts.

 

[chkdg8]

Select the folder you want to assign, for example, Drafts. On the Menubar, select Mailbox, toward the bottom you'll see "Use this mailbox for". Highlight that, and select Drafts. This will tell Mail to use the Gmail Drafts box for all drafts.

That worked great and thank you for this. If I may also add, this google groups article helped me out as well. I turned off Auto-Expunge by selecting: Do not automatically expunge messages and selecting When a message is expunged from the last visible IMAP folder: Immediately delete the message forever. If I need to keep an important email, I'll just move it to my saved folder in Mail.